THE CONUNDRUM OF CREATION
Only in recent years has man begun to learn the nature of matter, the earth we walk upon, the physical creation, the world we see and feel.
By means of the electron and x-ray micro-scopes, atoms-the building blocks from which the universe is made-have actually been photographed. Atoms average about a 10 millionth of an inch in a diagram.
This means 10 million times 10 million times 10 million atoms exist in a single block of metal one inch square. In other words, there are sextillion atoms in a piece of matter one inch square - which is one, followed by 21 zeros! Or using another illustration, the smallest bit of matter readily discernible to the human eye has no less than 1,000 trillion atoms!
Each atom has a nucleus with electrons revolving around it in the manner of a miniature solar system. And yet man is with all his wisdom and knowledge cannot create even one atom. He can change energy into matter or matter into energy as the fearsome atomic bomb and its detonation over Hiroshima proved only too well. But man cannot create even one atom out of nothing. We have to look higher than man for the Creator.
Even as we look down into the infinitely small, so the search in the heavens reveals the infinitely great. Our own sun, an average size star of the milky way nearly a million miles in diameter. This fiery orb supported by its own nuclear furnace can send forth light and heat for billions of years. But the sun is only one member of our universe. A hundred billion stars, some larger, some smaller, compose the Milky Way, which we see arched above us in the heavens.
What a tremendous galaxy it is! Light , racing 186,000 miles a second, requires 100,000 years a span its diameter! Radio waves, which are of the same nature as light, travel around the earth seven times in one second; yet they require 100,000 years to traverse our galaxy!
Do we begin to see how great creation is and therefore its creator? But the story is not yet told.
Nearest neighbors in the starry heavens are four light-years distant or approximately 26 trillion miles (26 trillion million). Other stars are much farther away, even thousands and tens of thousands of light years distant.
But we must go outside our own Milky Way to the more distant galaxies to see how great this universe really is. Neighboring galaxies are from 150,000 light-years to ten million light-years distant. There seems to be no thinning out of these mighty islands in space. Powerful telescopes aided by photography reveal literally hundreds of millions of these enormous systems- some of them located billion of light-years distant-representing infinite supplies of comic energy
Why have we taken time time to give this little sketch of the universe before discussing the nature of the Godhead? It is because we must have some idea of the magnitude of creation in order to understand even a little of the greatness of its Creator. How pitiful it is therefore to find some who scarcely know the ABCs of the universe to attempt to dogmatize on God. Surely the subject can only be considered in the spirit of utmost humility.
But let us give one more look at Gods creation for one more view of Gods handicraft; man himself. God said “Let us create man in our own image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26).
The Psalmist looking above at the heavens said:
“When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained; What is a man that thou art mindful of him…….. and the son of man, that thou visited him”(Psalm 8:3,4)
Then looking at himself he remarked:
“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth”(Ps. 139:14,15).
How truly is the Psalmists description of how God formed man in the womb. A human being begins as a little fertilized egg. Small as it is, God has written precise instructions on the invisible components of that egg which in nine months time will produce a newborn person with the members and organs complete and the ability eventually to reproduce in its own image.
Let us consider one organ of the body, the human eye. What a marvelous instrument of precision it is-far more perfect than the components of the finest television set. Light passes through the pupil which automatically opens and closes to let the right amount of light pass through. Then the image is focused on the retina where lie forty million little rods that collect the light and send their messages to the brain. There are also seven million little sensitized cones that detect and transmit color. And so these forty-seven million discrete dots of light go to the brain to form together a completed image that the person sees. And yet the eye is only one of many remarkable organs which make it possible for a human being to function.
Truly creator who has created all these marvelous things is a God to be approached with reverence and respect. But more than that, when we really know the nature of GOD, we are bond to love and adore Him beyond anything in the world.
Seeing this is so, may we approach God in our quest for knowledge of him in deep humility. The arrogant and the haughty are sure to be led astray. There are those unfortunately who have a preconceived idea of God, and they wrestle all evidence to fit their particular belief.
Once committed, men have a tendency to retain the fixed idea regardless of further evidence. How much better, with open mind, to see what God has revealed, and take Him at him Word. We do not explain God with a simple mathematical formula. We learn of God only through divine revelation.
What he has revealed we must accept.
